In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  She frowned. Though her extensive training in strategy made her an able military commander, Lyram had nearly fifteen years’ experience on her and was accounted a tactical genius. His insights were valuable, but he was still holed up with... her.

  “Did you hear me?” A shrill note entered Everard’s voice.

  Another crash shattered the stillness—thunder, this time. Outside, rain lashed the battlements and the men tasked to ward them

  Ellaeva looked at Everard, annoyed by his demanding insistence.

  Standing before the hearth, the normally calm and dignified aide’s eyes were wide with panic, and he wrung his hands with desperation. Even his uniform was in disarray, with his sporran crooked and shirt rumpled.

  She pressed her fingers to her temples and sighed. “I heard you. What would you like me to do?”

  “I don’t know. Something!”

  Twisting in her seat to turn her back to the distracting strategic maps, she focussed on Everard. “Lyram threw me out.”

  She stopped there, unwilling to detail the confrontation. When she suspected Leinahre of poisoning her, she’d every intention of turning the matter over to Lyram for justice, but not now. No, the look he’d turned on his dead wife’s secretary was obsessive and devoid of all rational thought. She’d arrest the woman herself, except for the way Lyram attacked her when Leinahre appeared threatened. Abandoning him to a suspected poisoner left her cold, but the soldiers would not support her against the commander.

  “He what? But... this is what I’m trying to tell you. He’s not like that!” Everard’s face slowly turned purple, and finally he let out an explosive breath. “He’s not.”

  She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. “You’re very certain.”

  “I am. I’ve known him since he was five. I was his tutor and then his aide-de-camp since his first campaign at fifteen. I’ve seen him in almost every conceivable situation, and I’ve been watching him grieve for nearly a year now.”

  “I watched him drink his grief away,” she said.

  He hesitated, then crossed to stand before her, straightening his shoulders. “Yes, he drank, but nothing else, and there’s been less whisky since the siege started. And he’s never looked at another woman since Zaheva, not even in his maddest moments of grief, except...” The aide stumbled over his tongue and pressed his lips tight together.

  Except what?

  But Everard recovered his equilibrium and ploughed on, his hands on his hips now as he stared down at her. “He never looked at Leinahre like that, and he’s taken no one to his bed since the lady died. I know that for a fact. It would’ve happened before now.”

  Ellaeva pursed her lips and stared into the distance. “I warned him about Leinahre, but he laughed it off and didn’t take me seriously. He certainly didn’t show any interest in her though... and grew angry when I pressed the issue. But what exactly are you suggesting?”

  “Could she...?” Everard licked his lips and lowered his voice, stooping his stork-like form. “Could she be the Rahmyrrim?”

  The suggestion was like snowmelt running down her spine. Could she be? She still needed to investigate what Kastyn was up to, since he’d either been skulking around near her rooms or otherwise in the vicinity of a shambler, though that was circumstantial at best. The immediate demands of the siege and the shock of Leinahre had kept her from speaking to him. Then again, poison was very much Rahmyrrim style. “I... ah. It’s possible, yes, although unlikely. Rahmyrrim are hardly ever women.”

  Her parents’ murderer was definitely a man, and she’d grown so sure he was the same Rahmyrrim here in the castle. If she were wrong, this would send her back to square one. Disappointment welled up, but she quashed it hard. She’d no proof either way right now.

  She shook her head. “I saw Kastyn coming out of the western stairwell, and now the catacombs are infested with spectres. I was forced to ward the cloister to prevent them from entering. I’ve not yet spoken to Kastyn though, and he might not be connected.”

  “You suspect him?” Everard stared into the flames on the fireplace. “He’s done nothing but spit vitriol since we got here.”

  “If the necromancer is Kastyn... or more likely a Rahmyrrim using Kastyn’s appearance—it’s a clever disguise, since no one would question the movements of the castellan’s son. But if it’s Kastyn, it’s not Leinahre.”

  “If it’s Leinahre, it’s not Kastyn,” Everard countered.

  “I’m doubtful, and besides, there are ways of influencing a man’s mind, beyond a normal woman’s wiles, that don’t involve the use of Rahmyrrim magic. You may be right about Lyram behaving oddly, but that’s hardly an accusation I can take to him, is it?”

  The dull throb of a headache started behind her eyes, and she sighed. So much to do, and no one else to undertake so many of those tasks. Check up on Kastyn. Find out what Leinahre did to Lyram. Organise the troops and defend the castle. Clear the catacombs of revenants and spectres both. The castle was too big to ward, but the catacombs needed to be marked off-limits. She groaned.

  “I think Leinahre tried to poison me too.”

  “What?” Everard’s eyes widened in surprise behind his spectacles.

  “I believe so. Which itself suggests she isn’t Rahmyrrim, since a Rahmyr priest would know I am proof against poison. But I can’t take that to Lyram either—not unless I want to find myself clapped in chains, and I don’t think this castle can afford to lose both its ablest commanders.”

  Everard knelt alongside her chair, in almost a supplicant’s position. “How much proof do you need?”

  That he so readily accepted that Leinahre was a poisoner said something for how far she’d fallen in his estimation.

  “To convince Lyram he’s been somehow influenced? No amount of proof will make a whit of difference if you’re right.”

  He made a negating gesture, quick and impatient. “No, no. Just to convince you. She poisoned you, right? And immediately after she locked herself away in Lyram’s suite. So maybe there’s something in the infirmary.”

  She straightened, her neck twinging. “Yes! I doubt Leinahre will soon risk leaving the suite alone after our confrontation today, but... how soon can you go? I don’t want to give her an opportunity to hide any evidence.”

  Everard fixed his crooked sporran and gave her a grim smile. “Oh I won’t. You can rest assured.”

  Ellaeva kicked a soldier off the wall then thrust her sword deep into the neck of another. His gurgling death-rattle was lost beneath the scream of his falling companion.

  A flicker out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she half-turned to look. Below, in the courtyard, a shadowed shape drifted above the cobbles. It was barely discernible in the mist of rain blanketing the battle. Nearby, a pair of children huddled in the kitchen doorway. The castle children were supposed to be inside during attacks but these must have slipped outside unsupervised to watch.

  “Get away! Run!” Ellaeva screamed, but the clash and clamour of sword against shield drowned out her words. Only Galdron, closer to her side of the courtyard, turned at the sound of her voice, his head swinging to and fro as he scanned for the threat.

  Desperate, she turned her back on another attacker swinging his leg over a crenel and bolted headlong for the courtyard. A castle soldier moved in behind her to attack the besieger.

  She plunged into the darkness of the spiral staircase, shoving past a pair of armoured men clattering their way up to the walls. Their bulk left barely enough room to squeeze between them and the central pillar.

  “Ahura’s tits!” one of the soldiers swore, evidently not recognising her in the dark.

  The other shushed him.

  She hurried on. How fast might a spectre move? How close was it to the children already?

  She burst from the narrow stairwell into the courtyard and dashed towards the kitchens, her boots slipping on the rain-slick cobbles. From behind, the clash of arms and the screams of the dying still echoed
off the castle walls. Ahead, the two children, a boy and a girl, studied the spectre silently, oblivious to the ice spider-webbing across the cobbles at their feet. Spectres were dead, and as cold as death, even though not of Ahura’s making.

  It was closing the distance between them, little more than a dark, smoky vague human-shape, indistinct around the edges. An old spirit, but no less deadly for it. She couldn’t save the children from the spectre’s touch any more than someone could be saved from her own touch.

  One of its shadowy arms lifted. The girl raised her own arm, as if to put her palm to the spectre’s.

  Galdron catapulted through the air, snagging the girl with one arm and cradling her to his chest as he crashed to his armoured back on the cobbles in a great screech of iron against stone. The boy froze, and Ellaeva lunged forward. Raising the sword two-handed over her head, she raced in close to the spectre and drove the point down into its insubstantial shape. Nothing slowed the blade. The dark pommel stone flared a deep red, growing so bright she closed her eyes as she stumbled on the uneven cobbles, trying to halt her momentum. A thin shriek on the edge of hearing made her ears ring, and a child sobbed nearby. Then she hit the wet ground and rolled, her still-wounded body protesting the rough treatment.

  She came to a stop at the boy’s feet, soft rain pattering against her face. The air temperature dropped so sharply here that gooseflesh pebbled her skin, and her eyes watered from the red light. She squinted, blinking against the burning sensation. Rain already dampened her robes, and now melting ice seeped through as well.

  The boy stood still with his mouth hanging open. Tears streaked the girl’s face where she lay a yard away, still clutched tight to Galdron’s chest, and the captain’s face was knotted in a strange mix of anger and sick fear.

  Nothing remained of the spectre burned up by the touch of her sword. Its destruction was evident in the way the air began to warm, but also in every fierce ache in her body, in the bone-deep sense of fatigue turning her movements leaden, and the sudden fierce stabbing in her temples. Such were the after-effects of channelling the power of a goddess.

  The little girl screamed again, her hands flying to her mouth. Ellaeva rolled to look in the direction the girl faced

  Not another spectre, please.

  A trio of men raced across the courtyard, dressed in the mixed cuir bouilli and iron plate harness of Sayella’s mercenaries. Cursing, she scrambled to her feet, swinging her sword back into a guard position.

  “Get inside!” She shoved the boy towards the kitchen door and hauled the girl from Galdron’s grip, pushing her after her brother. She pulled the guard captain to his feet, his weight pulling against her shoulder joint.

  The mercenaries closed the gap, then faltered.

  Probably just realised who I am. The grim thought provided no solace. Ellaeva ran to meet them, and Galdron followed close behind her shoulder, his heavy steps beating a rhythm on the stones.

  Ellaeva ducked under the wild swing of the leading Gallowglaigh and left him to face Galdron. Her blood roared in her ears. The presence of the goddess hung over her like a gravecloth. Two steps carried her to the second man, and she landed a heavy blow to his midsection, enough to wind him, but his mail blocked most of the force. He doubled over, wheezing.

  The third man stopped, setting his feet. She circled him, testing, and her blade scraped off his mail. He was cautious, and she pressed him hard with a thundering flurry of blows. He blocked them all, each parry a fraction slower. The ring of steel against steel echoed through the courtyard. She pressed him back, her silver blade blurring. He stepped up against a wall. She swung again, hard, and he dropped. Her sword scraped across the stone in a shower of sparks. Her attacker tried to roll away, to gain his feet, but she recovered fast. The next strike took him in the neck, just below his helm.

  Ellaeva ripped her sword free, heedless of the red blood pumping to the stones, and spun on her heel. Where was the second attacker, the one she’d winded?

  A few yards away, the man chased the little girl. The boy was nowhere in sight, but the girl dodged in desperation, silent tears streaming down her face and her little chest heaving with sobs. The soldier’s big fingers raked through her hair, and she squealed, cutting back the other way. Galdron fought the first mercenary hard, glancing over desperately as he tried to disengage. The Gallowglaigh scored his face with the tip of his blade, and Galdron jerked back.

  Ellaeva’s chest grew tight. A deep cold settled over her skin. She broke into a run, and a growl deep in her throat grew into a roar. Her boots slammed against the wet stones with each stride and her black robes flapped in the wind of her passing. The mercenary pursuing the girl turned, eyes wide with surprise. At the sight of her, the blood drained from his face. Too late, he remembered the sword in his hand.

  He’d only half-raised it when she drove her blade up under his ribs, the almost-black ruby flaring red as the tip crunched through his mail and into flesh. His knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground, falling free of her sword.

  Behind him, the little girl stared at Ellaeva with wide eyes in a pale face. When she extended her left hand to the girl, the child squeaked and backed up two steps.

  Ellaeva sighed and let her hand fall. “Go inside, child. Find your mother.”

  The girl fled.

  “She’d be dead if not for you.”

  Ellaeva turned. Galdron stood, breathing hard, blood fanning down his cheek and into his beard from the long gouge the Gallowglaigh gave him. A quick glance past the captain’s shoulder revealed the man sprawled in death. On the walls above, lost in the fog of rain, the sounds of battle started to slow.

  “The mercenaries might not have cared about the children if they didn’t see me go to such lengths to save them.” She pushed loose wisps of sweaty hair back from her face with one hand. “No doubt they thought to use them against me.”

  “Better dead at the hand of a spectre than risked to mercenaries?”

  The incredulous tone in his voice made her hesitate. “Well, no... not when you put it like that.”

  He stared up at the walls, where the new-risen sun made a patch of clouds glow brighter. The last of the attackers on the walls appeared to be dead. “How did they get in?”

  “I’ll need a full report, but I heard some soldiers saying the Gallowglaighs must have picked their way through the marsh, swam the moat, and scaled the rear wall under cover of the storm and darkness. Lyram won’t be happy. And we’ll need to reconsider how heavily-manned that back wall is.” Bad news. They were already spread thin, and the front walls were only well-manned because of the marsh protecting the rear.

  Galdron pulled his helm off and tossed it to the cobblestones with a dissonant clang, ruffling his fingers through sweat-soaked hair to pull it free of his skull. “This is, what? The third battle without the commander? The fourth? The men are wondering where he is.”

  Of course they are. And the more they wondered, the more rumours would fly, and then morale would start dropping—if it hadn’t already. Before today, no enemy soldiers had made it over the walls, but with each assault the cats made more progress filling the moat. They’d made good headway today while the men on the walls were distracted by the wall breach.

  “I’m working on it,” she said. “Casualties?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Everard ducked out of the nearby kitchen door and paused on the stoop. A chicken investigated his boots and wandered away. “Your holiness, do you have a moment? I need your expertise.”

  She sighed. She’d barely seen Everard in the two days since she sent him off to investigate, and he chose now to reappear and demand her attention?

  “I’ll handle it,” Galdron said, his voice gruff. “I’ll spread the word about how you helped save the little girl too. The men need someone to look up to.”

  He turned smartly on his heel and strode off, replacing his helm on his head as he went. She grimaced at his back. If he hoped for the men to look to her, sh
e foresaw disappointment in his near future.

  Across the courtyard, Kastyn ducked out of a doorway and scurried past the barbican gate, his feet kicking up small splashes of rain from puddles in his haste. He was headed for the same stairwell to the catacombs where she found the shambler.

  “It’ll have to wait.” She nodded a quick apology to Everard and dashed after the castellan’s son.

  Blood still smeared the blade clutched in her hand, mixing slowly with rivulets from rain, and she wrinkled her nose, wiping it clean on her robes before sheathing. A less than ideal solution, but rushing after someone waving a bloody sword was rarely conducive to a good outcome.

  Despite her haste, Kastyn disappeared into the darkness before she reached him. She followed, descending the stairs with quick, quiet steps. When she was several steps short of the bottom, she paused. Nothing but silence reached her ears. Had he stopped somewhere?

  After a moment’s hesitation, she peered around the last bend. No light shone through the darkness, and everything was still and silent as a tomb. She shivered at the thought. Her close association with death usually left her comfortable in its presence, but the corpses wandering around down here, and the encounter with the spectre above ground, left her uneasy.

  She stepped out of the stairwell. Leaving the torches burning in their sconces inside the stairs, she prowled through the darkness of nearby caverns, searching with her ears more than her eyes. Not even the whisper of footsteps receding into the distance reached her—only silence.

  She’d guessed he was searching her room last time, but she’d been wrong. What if this time...?

  She spun on her heel and ran up the steps, the flames of the torches flickering in the breeze of her passing. She ran straight past the ground-level exit and kept going to the first floor. At the top, she threw open her door.